Carl Leubsdorf: It was a night of predictable partisan divides

7:13 PM,
Feb. 14, 2013

Carl P. Leubsdorf

Written by

Carl Leubsdorf
Dallas Morning News

On a night when President Obama appealed for a bipartisan approach to national problems from tax reform to protecting the vote, almost every visible sign showed why that remains unlikely.

Exemplifying the continuing partisan divide, Democratic Vice President Joe Biden often smiled as he rose to applaud Obama's Tuesday night State of the Union proposals, while Republican House Speaker John Boehner shifted uncomfortably in his seat, often staring silently ahead.

Where the president sketched the broad-ranging, forward-looking agenda for his second term, Sen. Marco Rubio's official ...